Our Lady of Czestochowa

Celebrations for the geast of the Virgin Mary, Assiut–Egypt, August 2025. / Credit: ACI MENA

ACI MENA, Aug 26, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Monastery of the Virgin Mary in Assiut, in southern Egypt, holds special significance. It is considered to be the final stop of the Holy Family’s journey in Egypt and includes an ancient cave where Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are believed to have lived before beginning their return to the Holy Land.

In Upper Egypt, monastic life has flourished since the fourth century under St. John of Egypt — also known as John of Assiut in the Middle East and northern Africa. The monastery there continues its mission today, with daily Masses, baptisms, and pilgrim visits.

The well-known religious site also now hosts one of the largest annual religious celebrations in Egypt. Every year, from Aug. 7–22, during the feast of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Family’s visit to Assiut is celebrated.

The celebrations draw massive crowds of pilgrims, particularly on the feast day of the Virgin, with attendance exceeding 750,000 people, according to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner.

The monastery complex includes several churches, but the historic Cave Church is surrounded by particular reverence.

Oral tradition recounts that Joseph the Patriarch once used the cave to store grain and that the Holy Family later lived there. In subsequent centuries, the cave served as a refuge for Egypt’s Christians fleeing persecution, many of whom turned these shelters into churches.

It is unusual to find statues of Christ, the Virgin, or the saints in Coptic Orthodox churches, which traditionally venerate them through icons. Yet in 2023, the Assiut monastery witnessed the raising of Egypt’s largest statue of Mary, cast in bronze and modeled after the famous Our Lady of Lebanon statue, to coincide with the celebration of her birthday.

The Egyptian Mint also issued a commemorative series of 12 coins representing major sites along the Holy Family’s journey through Egypt, including the Assiut site, known as Durunka.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

The Vatican Gardens at Castel Gandolfo. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 26, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to inaugurate on Sept. 5 Borgo Laudato Si’, a development dedicated to the care of creation inspired by Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. Located in Castel Gandolfo, the area will be open to the public. 

According to Vatican News, Borgo Laudato Si’ consists of “135 acres of gardens, villas, archeological sites, and farmland, [and] the project integrates history with a forward-looking commitment to education, sustainability, and community life.”

The site, which has been a summer retreat for popes for centuries, has been dedicated to Pope Francis’ initiative since 2023 to show “how care for creation and respect for human dignity can be made concrete and harmonious according to the principles of faith, through formation, work, and collaboration,” according to a statement released by the Holy See Press Office.

The center will be inaugurated in the year marking the first decade since the encyclical’s publication with a simple ceremony consisting of the Liturgy of the Word and a rite of blessing.

According to the information released by the Vatican, representatives of the Roman Curia, institutions, and those who have collaborated in launching the project will be present.

Singer Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo will join in the prayer with their artistic gift.

Beforehand, Leo XIV will visit the site, “touring its main spaces and meeting with employees, collaborators, their families, and all the people who, in different ways, animate the life of Borgo Laudato Si’: religious, educators, students, local communities, partners, and benefactors.”

The Vatican presents the event as “the fruit of a journey that intertwines spirituality, education, and sustainability with the aim of offering an open, accessible, and inclusive place for formation, reflection, and the experience of a more conscious and respectful relationship with creation.”

In May, a few days after the 10th anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si’, Leo XIV made his first visit to the site. The pontiff subsequently spent a good part of his summer break at Castel Gandolfo, resuming the tradition broken by Pope Francis, who stayed at the Vatican. 

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

The Catholic bishops are backing a suit by a coalition of Apache Stronghold, a coalition of Native Americans and their supporters, in their lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit argues that their freedom of religion was violated when the federal government announced its intention to sell formerly protected land in Arizona to a mining company. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Becket

CNA Staff, Aug 26, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“Arbitrary government interference.”

That’s what the Knights of Columbus warned will befall religious believers in the U.S. if a copper mining company is allowed to take possession of, and destroy, a centuries-old Native American worship site in Arizona.

That site, Oak Flat, has been the subject of years of dispute and litigation, with a coalition group of activists known as Apache Stronghold leading an effort to prevent the government from surrendering the ancient religious location to private interests.

For decades the federal government protected the parcel from development in the Tonto National Forest. But the Obama administration in 2014 began the process of transferring the land to the multinational Resolution Copper, whose mining operations will dig a massive pit at the site and end its status as a center of worship.

The Native American activists have drawn support from a wide variety of religious advocates and stakeholders in the U.S., including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Knights of Columbus.

Apache Stronghold lost its bid at the Supreme Court earlier this year to halt the sale. This month, as part of a different legal challenge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit paused the sale just hours before it was to take effect, giving Native advocates likely their last chance to head off the destruction of the site.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act weakened

At issue in the main legal dispute is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a Clinton-era law that restricts how and under what conditions the U.S. government can impose burdens upon U.S. religious liberty.

RFRA states that laws “shall not substantially burden” an individual’s religion, ordering that the government must have both a compelling interest in burdening a religion and must achieve it via the least restrictive means. 

Joe Davis, an attorney with the religious liberty legal group Becket, told CNA that the law is what’s known as a “super statute,” one that “applies to all federal law and all federal actions under the law.” 

Becket has supported Apache Stronghold in its effort to halt the sale of the site. Davis said that Congress in passing RFRA aimed to ensure that “before the government really does anything, it’s supposed to think about the effects and implications on religion and religious practitioners.” 

“RFRA doesn’t actually stop the government from doing anything,” he said. “It just requires them to have a really good reason to do it.”

Prior to the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Apache Stronghold case, a lower court had decided that though RFRA generally prohibits the government’s “substantial burdening” of religion, that guidance does not apply in cases of “disposition of government real property,” as is the case with the Oak Flat parcel. 

Davis described that ruling as a “restrictive interpretation of RFRA.” The more narrow reading of the law, he said, “will filter down into other cases and be applied any time the government wants to avoid having to prove a burden on religious exercise.”

Indeed, the case has already had a demonstrable effect on religious liberty in the U.S., specifically involving a Knights of Columbus chapter in Virginia. 

The Knights Petersburg Council 694 had held a memorial Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery for decades, but the National Park Service in 2023 moved to bar the Knights from any further Masses, claiming it constituted a prohibited “demonstration” due to its religious character. 

The government eventually relented in the face of litigation. But Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing in dissent earlier this year over the high court’s refusal to hear the Apache case, pointed out that the government in banning the Knights had explicitly cited the new RFRA standard brought about by the Oak Flat case.

Davis noted the diverse religious concerns raised by the case, pointing to filings in support of the Native Americans from the U.S. bishops, the Knights, and numerous other major faith groups.

The injunction issued this month by the 9th Circuit concerns three separate cases, one of which involves environmental claims. Briefs in the case will be due starting Sept. 8. Whether or not the more restrictive interpretation of RFRA can be reversed in those cases is unclear.

Davis, meanwhile, stressed that the statute “protects all religions and religious practitioners in this country.”

The U.S. bishops agreed last year, writing with other Christian groups that changing the parameters of RFRA made the law “a dead letter when applied to obliteration of an Indigenous sacred site on federal land.”

“Beyond that catastrophic harm, this approach defies the statutory text, misreads precedent, and would produce other unjust results,” they wrote.

Davis, meanwhile, argued that the restrictive interpretation “is really bad for all religions in this country.”

“It’s bad for the Apaches, and it’s bad for all people of faith,” he said.

null / Credit: Ground Picture/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 25, 2025 / 18:27 pm (CNA).

In a bid to help strengthen marriages across the state, the California Catholic Conference (CCC)
has launched its first-ever statewide partnership with Communio, a nonprofit organization that equips parishes to “evangelize through the renewal of healthy relationships, marriages, and families.” 

News of the agreement follows the CCC’’s efforts over the past year to promote marriage and family through its “Radiate Love” initiative, which is set to end on Sept. 26 with a marriage summit in Oakland, where the CCC’s partnership with Communio will officially launch. 

“The goal is to quantifiably strengthen marriage, either by self-reported happiness in marriage, by rising marriage rates, or by encouraging people to marry,” Communio’s director of church growth, Damon Owens, told CNA. 

Ordinarily, Communio partners on a diocesan and parish level to build out the most optimal version of its Full Circle Relationship Ministry Model to suit the needs of the community. Owens said he was inspired about a year and a half ago by the Radiate Love initiative to reach out to the conference about a partnership. 

After speaking with California Catholic Conference Executive Director Kathleen Domingo for some months and traveling to California to deliver talks centered on the theology of the body and marriage and family issues, the partnership — which includes all 12 bishops and dioceses in the state — came to fruition.  

The agreement, Owens said, marks the first time that every bishop across an entire state has bought in to bringing the program to every parish in his diocese.

“Every parish in California will now have access to Communio’s relationship ministry model, which is credited with a 24% drop in the divorce rate in Jacksonville, Florida,” the conference said in an Aug. 20 press release announcing the arrangement.

“I’ve been watching the progression of Communio over the years and hearing really great things from our marriage and family life directors, who have always told us that Communio is the gold standard,” Domingo said in the release.

She added: “If they could have any tool in their toolbox to help parishioners and parish families, it would be Communio.”

“In John 10:10, the Lord said that he came so that we would have life and have it more abundantly. We know that strong marriages and healthy families help us to have this abundant life, so we are excited to partner with Communio,” Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Freyer of the Diocese of Orange and executive officer for the CCC also said in the release.

Inside the data-driven effort to reach parishioners

“The core of what we offer is data insight to know what the problems are, but also access to technology and consulting that helps to build a plan of events and encounters where new people come to the parish and parishioners themselves want to come,” he explained.

“We have a unique technology that helps to do both the data gathering but also determining which programs are a good fit for them,” Owens continued. “So part of the consulting is literally going through almost like an Amazon page where you’re selecting facilitator-led programs or on your own or workbook or group or individual.”

Communio provides programs tailored to one of four areas: singles, marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, and marriage in crisis. They work with a team of five to six people in a parish to build a calendar of events for the year in a sequence that best helps “to draw people into the Church, but addresses the top needs first.”

“It’s a very customized way of making sure that they get the results that they want because people are telling us what their needs are through the surveys,” he said, noting that this addresses the “deepest concern” for pastors regarding the “specific needs that their people have.”

“California represents probably the whole spectrum of the type of parishes that we work around the country. You’ve got the poor rural, you’ve got the wealthy suburbs, you’ve got big cities, you’ve got mountains, you’ve got large parishes, small parishes,” Owens pointed out. 

“I think for each of those pastors, they want to know, is investing in Communio to invest in those marriages going to bring to them the success that we’ve been able to achieve around the country?” he said. “And that’s why we’re so confident and excited about it, because we know that we can.”

The Ten Commandments outside the Texas state capitol building. / Credit: BLundin via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Houston, Texas, Aug 25, 2025 / 17:57 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has directed public schools across the state not enjoined by ongoing litigation to comply with Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), a new law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. 

A federal court ruling last week temporarily blocked its enforcement in nearly a dozen independent school districts (ISDs) across the state.

“Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by [SB 10] and display the Ten Commandments,” Paxton said in his directive, issued on Aug. 24.

On Aug. 20, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued a preliminary injunction after 16 families sued 11 Texas school districts, arguing the law violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. 

The federal ruling halts the law’s implementation, set to begin Sept. 1, in school districts in and around San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and includes Alamo Heights ISD, North East ISD, Lackland ISD, Northside ISD, Austin ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Dripping Springs ISD, Houston ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Cypress Fairbanks ISD, and Plano ISD. 

Paxton’s office filed an appeal on Aug. 21, asserting that the law reflects Texas’ historical and moral foundation.

“From the beginning, the Ten Commandments have been irrevocably intertwined with America’s legal, moral, and historical heritage,” Paxton said in an Aug. 25 press release. “The woke radicals seeking to erase our nation’s history will be defeated. I will not back down from defending the virtues and values that built this country.”

SB 10, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on June 21, requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments, measuring at least 16 by 20 inches, in every classroom.

According to Paxton: “While no school is compelled to purchase Ten Commandments displays, schools may choose to do so. However, schools must accept and display any privately donated posters or copies that meet the requirements of SB 10.”

Supporters, including Republican state Sen. Phil King, who introduced the legislation along with state Sen. Mayes Middleton, have argued the law promotes values foundational to Texas and U.S. law.

“The Ten Commandments are part of our Texas and American story,” King said of the law earlier this year. “They are ingrained into who we are as a people and as a nation. Today, our students cry out for the moral clarity, for the statement of right and wrong that they represent. If our students don’t know the Ten Commandments, they will never understand the foundation for much of American history and law.”

Attorney Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, director of The Conscience Project, told CNA: “These laws requiring a passive display of the Ten Commandments do not violate either the establishment clause or the free exercise clause.”

Of the appeal filed by Paxton, Picciotti-Bayer said: “The 5th Circuit en banc should examine challenges against them, and if it does not, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely make clear that such modest acknowledgements of faith and the foundations of law pass judicial scrutiny.” 

The law’s opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), contend it unconstitutionally favors Christianity.

Heather Weaver, an attorney with the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, who represented the plaintiffs, acknowledged that Biery’s ruling, “as a technical matter,” only “covers the school district defendants.” Despite this, she went on to say: “Every school district should heed it, even if they are not a defendant in the case.”

The 11 school districts affected by the temporary injunction have a combined enrollment of approximately 680,790 students. This represents about 12.38% of the total 5.5 million public school students in Texas for the 2024-2025 school year.

As of the 2024-2025 school year, Texas has 1,246 public school districts, according to the Texas Education Agency. This number includes 1,026 ISDs and 220 charter school districts.

The legal fight mirrors similar battles in Louisiana and Arkansas, where courts have also blocked Ten Commandments display laws. Paxton’s appeal could escalate the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Known as “the papal chef,” Salvo Lo Castro spent 10 years at the Vatican cooking meals for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Now, he’s opened his first restaurant in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood called Casasalvo. / Credit: TheBrandoers, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 17:27 pm (CNA).

Known as “the papal chef,” Salvo Lo Castro spent 10 years at the Vatican cooking meals for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Now, he’s opened his first restaurant in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood called Casasalvo. 

The new Italian restaurant opened in July and has quickly gained popularity, particularly for Lo Castro’s mother’s meatball recipe — which was also a big hit among the two popes he served. 

The 52-year-old Sicilian chef said that for those who eat at his new restaurant, it’s like eating a meal in his home.

“The restaurant is my home, and the people who dine with me aren’t clients — they’re guests who come to my home,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. 

During his time cooking for the two popes, he shared that in his eyes “every pope is a normal person,” and “[w]hile John Paul was very charismatic, for me the best was Benedict.”

He added that while during the last years of John Paul II’s life he had a very light diet, Benedict was a fan of his meatballs and schnitzel. 

“His eyes were magnetic, and his voice to me was God in the world,” Lo Castro said of Pope Benedict.

Lo Castro’s experience cooking meals for notable figures doesn’t end with popes. He’s cooked for Moammar Gadhafi, the Saudi royal family, and actors Tom Cruise and Robert De Niro, among others. He will soon welcome Leonardo DiCaprio and tennis champion Roger Federer into his new restaurant for an event with the brand Rolex.

“Normally, for other people, it is not normal, but for me, it doesn’t matter if I’m cooking for a pope, president, or ordinary person,” Lo Castro said. “Every man I cook for is a king, and every woman I cook for is a queen.”

The chef also pointed out that while he typically freely invents new dishes for his menu, during Church holidays his menu has the least amount of leeway.

“Every religious period for the Catholic Church, like Christmas, is very strict when it comes to what food to serve,” he said. “On Easter, for example, I’d prepare lamb and it’s all very traditional.”

As for the future, Lo Castro said he hopes to open more restaurants around the world.

“My biggest satisfaction is that I came from a small town, and now I’m cooking for the world,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m still a very normal man.”

Pope Leo XIV greets French altar servers during an audience on Aug. 25, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 16:57 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV said during an audience with French altar servers in Rome on Aug. 25, the feast day of St. Louis IX, king of France, that the shortage of priests is “a great misfortune” for the Catholic Church, encouraging them to “persevere faithfully” in their service at the altar.

“I also wish you to be attentive to the call that Jesus might make to you to follow him more closely in the priesthood. I am speaking to your consciences as enthusiastic and generous young people, and I am going to tell you something that you must listen to, even if it worries you a little: the shortage of priests in France is a great misfortune! A misfortune for the Church, a misfortune for your country!” the pontiff said.

Leo XIV began his address by reminding the young people that the jubilee celebrated by the Church every 25 years is “an exceptional occasion” and that, as we pass through the Holy Door, Jesus “helps us to ‘convert,’ that is, to turn toward him, to grow in faith and in his love so that we may become better disciples, and that our lives may be made beautiful and good in his sight, in view of eternal life.”

He therefore invited the altar servers to take advantage of the opportunity to come to Rome, above all by “spending time speaking to Jesus in the depths of your hearts and loving him more and more,” because he desires only “to become your best friend, your most faithful one.”

‘Only Jesus comes to save us, and no one else’

In the face of the world’s challenges, the pontiff asked: “Who will come to our aid?” He explained that “the answer is perfectly clear and has echoed throughout history for 2,000 years: Only Jesus comes to save us, and no one else: because only he has the power — he is almighty God in person — and because he loves us.”

The “sure proof” that this is so, he went on to explain to the young altar servers, is that “Jesus loves us and saves us: He gave his life for us by offering it on the cross.”

“This is the most wonderful thing about our Catholic faith, something no one could have imagined or expected: God, the creator of heaven and earth, wanted to suffer and die for us, who are creatures. God has loved us to the point of death!” he said.

Regarding the Eucharist, Leo XIV emphasized that it is “the treasure of the Church, the treasure of treasures,” which he described as “the most important event in the life of a Christian and in the life of the Church, because it is the encounter in which God gives himself to us out of love, again and again.”

“Christians do not go to Mass out of obligation but because they absolutely need it; the need for the life of God that is given without return,” the Holy Father emphasized.

After expressing his gratitude for the “very great and generous” service that altar servers provide in their parishes, Leo XIV invited them to “persevere faithfully,” keeping in mind as they approach the altar “the greatness and holiness of what is being celebrated.”

Eucharist: A moment of celebration and also of solemnity

In this sense, he added: “The Mass is a moment of celebration and joy. How can we fail to have a joyful heart in the presence of Jesus? But the Mass is, at the same time, a serious, solemn moment, imbued with gravity. May your attitude, your silence, the dignity of your service, the liturgical beauty, the order and majesty of your gestures, draw the faithful into the sacred grandeur of the mystery.”

It was at this point that the pontiff appealed to the conscience of the altar servers, “enthusiastic and generous young people,” inviting them to heed the possible call to the ordained ministry.

“May you,” the pope added, “little by little, from Sunday to Sunday, discover the beauty, the happiness and the necessity of such a vocation. What a wonderful life is that of the priest who, in the heart of each of his days, encounters Jesus in such an exceptional way and gives him to the world!”

Before imparting his blessing, Leo XIV dismissed those present with words of encouragement: “Your number and the faith that animates you are a great consolation, a sign of hope. Persevere with courage and bear witness to those around you of the pride and joy that comes from serving at Mass.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez is president of Nicaragua’s bishops’ conference. / Credit: Alonso3215 (CC0 1.0)

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 15:09 pm (CNA).

Over the weekend, Pope Leo XIV received the exiled president of the Nicaraguan bishops’ conference, Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, who was expelled from the Central American country by the Daniel Ortega dictatorship in November 2024.

On Aug. 23, the Vatican press office said that “this morning the Holy Father received in audience His Eminence Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, OFM, bishop of Jinotega (Nicaragua)."

As is customary with these types of audiences, the Vatican did not offer further details about the meeting.

Herrera has been president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference since 2022. In 2024, under intense persecution by the dictatorship of Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, Herrera was expelled from the country after criticizing a pro-Ortega mayor who interfered with a Mass by blasting loud music in front of the cathedral.

ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, confirmed that after the bishop’s expulsion, he was taken in by a Franciscan community in Guatemala.

Nicaragua has nine bishops, four of whom live in exile. In addition to Herrera, those forced to leave the country are Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua; Rolando Álvarez, bishop of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of Estelí; and Isidoro Mora, bishop of Siuna.

Before being deported, Álvarez spent 17 months in detention, first under house arrest and then in prison, and was stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.

Among the many attacks on the Church perpetrated by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, the then-apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, was expelled from Nicaragua in March 2022. This led to the severance of diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

In March 2023, Pope Francis harshly criticized Ortega, stating that he must be suffering from some personal “imbalance” and comparing his regime to the “crude dictatorships” of the early 20th century.

“I believe that Pope Leo XIV will be a true lion, a defender and champion of the faith of the Nicaraguan people, with the strength of a lion and the humility of a lamb,” Arturo McFields Yescas, Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States, who is in exile for denouncing the dictatorship’s excesses, told ACI Prensa in May.

Although Pope Leo XIV has not yet spoken publicly about Nicaragua, McFields Yescas commented that currently “there is much hope” because despite the dictatorship’s relentless attacks, “the faith remains free and remains strengthened in the midst of persecution.”

One of the regime’s latest attacks has been the confiscation of the iconic St. Joseph School in Jinotepe, an event described by Martha Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer and researcher in exile, as “an outrage against religious freedom.”

Molina is the author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” which in its latest edition reports nearly 1,000 attacks by the dictatorship against the Church.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

null / Credit: Lighthunter/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 14:36 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Catholic Health Association have voiced their “strong support” for the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced in the Senate last month by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia.

In a letter to Senate committee leaders, Archbishop Borys Gudziak, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Bishop Daniel Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities; and Catholic Health Association President and CEO Sister Mary Haddad emphasized the legislation’s potential to address critical gaps in palliative care access while aligning with the Catholic Church’s moral teachings.

The bill aims to expand access to palliative care, a medical approach focused on improving quality of life for seriously ill patients near the end of life through pain and symptom management, emotional support, and care coordination.

The letter cited the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) Samaritanus Bonus (On the Care of Persons in the Critical and Terminal Phases of Life): “Palliative care is an authentic expression of the human and Christian activity of providing care, the tangible symbol of the compassionate ‘remaining’ at the side of the suffering person.”

In their letter, the Catholic leaders highlighted three major barriers to broader access to such care: a shortage of trained palliative care professionals, limited research funding for advancing best practices, and low awareness among both the public and health care providers about the role and timing of palliative care.

The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act seeks to address these challenges by funding training programs for health care professionals, supporting research to improve palliative care practices, and promoting public education campaigns. If passed, the legislation would allocate resources to expand the workforce of palliative care specialists and enhance care delivery for patients with chronic or terminal illnesses.

Gudziak, the archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Arechparchy of Philadelphia; Thomas, the Bishop of Toldeo, Ohio; and Haddad praised the bill’s inclusion of language ensuring compliance with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997, which prohibits federal funds from being used for assisted suicide or euthanasia.

“Importantly, the bill includes essential language affirming that all supported programs must comply with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997 and may not be used to cause or assist in causing a patient’s death under any circumstance,” they wrote.

The bill’s endorsement comes amid growing national attention to end-of-life care, with Catholic leaders advocating for approaches that prioritize the compassion and dignity of palliative care without the moral offenses of euthanasia or assisted suicide.

The Church teaches that “human life is a sacred gift from God that must be protected and respected at every stage,” the letter said. The USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services and the CDF’s 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia teach that euthanasia is “an action or an omission” on the part of health care providers “which of itself or by intention causes death, in order that all suffering may in this way be eliminated.” Assisted suicide occurs when a health care provider assists a patient to end his or her own life. 

Oregon was the first state to legalize assisted suicide in 1997. The practice is now legal in 10 states and in Washington, D.C.

In another two states — Montana and New York — legislation that could legalize the practice is still pending. New York’s legislation awaits the signature of that state’s governor, while pro-life voices such as New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan are outspoken against the bill.

Originally introduced in 2022, when more than 50 groups endorsed it, the legislation is currently under review by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

On July 16, Reps. Earl “Buddy” Carter, R-Georgia, and Ami Bera, D-California, introduced an identical, companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The campus of Crown College in Minnesota. / Credit: Clappert, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 25, 2025 / 14:06 pm (CNA).

A federal judge has ruled that Christian colleges that require students to sign a statement of faith cannot be excluded from a Minnesota program that lets high school students take college courses for credit.

On Friday, Aug. 22, United States District Judge Nancy Brasel ruled that the law banning religious institutions from the Minnesota Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program is an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom. 

The 40-year-old PSEO program has long served high schoolers in the state by promoting academic pursuits at both secular and religious colleges. It allows sophomore, junior, and senior high school students to take college courses at the school of their choosing and covers the cost of tuition and required classroom materials.

Religious colleges, including Crown College in St. Bonifacius and the University of Northwestern in Roseville, were banned because they require their students to pledge to follow school religious values and rules. They also do not allow students who are not Christian or who identify as LGBT.

Since 2019, the state’s Department of Education had sought to apply such a ban and eventually succeeded in 2023, when Democrats gained control of both houses of the Legislature. The ban on participation in the program by religious schools with faith statement requirements was enacted through a broader education funding bill signed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Subsequently, the two colleges and parents of high school students who wished to partake in the program at the Christian schools sued to overturn the law. The group was represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which argued the law violated religious freedom under the First Amendment.

After Becket filed the lawsuit, Minnesota promised not to enforce the law while the case was ongoing. More than two years after filing the suit, Brasel ruled in favor of the colleges and parents. 

Brasel said the court had to “venture into the delicate constitutional interplay of religion and publicly‐funded education.” She said the First Amendment “gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,” and states can’t disqualify private schools “solely because they’re religious.”

Brasel also threw out a related nondiscrimination requirement that prohibited participating schools from basing admission to the program on gender, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.